Be on the Look Out For

Notice if you are resisting anything you are reading or hearing, because to move through to recovery you need to adopt an open and curious mind set which enables you to be in the transformational Phase 4 which as you may remember is the ‘Internal Search’ phase.

This means you have reached the point of taking responsibility for your recovery. You are prepared to shake up some long held beliefs and judgements that are causing you problems and are making any necessary changes to the areas of your life that are not serving you anymore.

The ‘Do What It Takes’ mentality is key for recovery so put on your seat belt for your journey into your belief systems.

In Session 13 we looked at how important our values are and it may be really helpful to read that session through again because the two sessions are integrally linked.

Our values are the foundations on which we construct our life: it is our beliefs that can be positive or negative building blocks which literally create our sanctuary or our prison.

Your beliefs influence every action you take and even more importantly the actions that you don’t take. In short what we believe creates our positive and negative thoughts and generates our behaviours.

‘If I have The Belief I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning’

- Mahatma Gandhi

Look at these typical examples of a belief being expressed. Which person is going to do better?

Negative or Self-limiting Belief = Prison

‘I have been ill for so long that I don’t think I will ever be able to do the things I used to do.’

Notice how the negative belief has limited the outcome for this person.

Positive or Empowering Belief = Sanctuary

'I am learning what caused me to get ill so that I can regain my health and enjoy being active again.'

This person will experience life very differently and their outcome is much more likely to be a happy one.

The fantastic news about beliefs is that they can be changed. This takes a bit of effort, because if you have believed something for a long time it takes time for the brain to embed new thought pathways.

So let’s get started!

Still, I was prepared to do anything, so I bought a book called Teach Yourself to Meditate by Eric Harrison and it was one of the best things I ever did, because my mind was so wired and confused that I didn’t think I would ever be able to get it to be still.

I don’t sit on a rock cross legged, but I do go into deep states of relaxation and I can clear my mind. In the exercises this week there are some different ways for you to create deep relaxation in your body and mind.

It took a bit of time to get going with my meditation but the thing that pushed me to persevere with it was when I understood the why and how of meditation.

This made all the difference to me, so before we get into the ‘how to meditate’, let’s remind ourselves of the reasons 'why we need to meditate' which we will explore in the next module.

So imagine you are 6 or 7 years old or whichever age you were when you believed. Where does Father Christmas live?

• How did he get to your house on Christmas Eve?
• How did he get inside your house?
• How did you know he had been there?
• Did he only deliver Christmas presents to you on that night?
• How long did he have to make all his deliveries?

The reason you believed in those things is because you were told it was true by people you trusted to tell you the truth. You also had some evidence to support what they told you.

However, look at the word belief.

BE-LIE-F

The middle three letters in belief spell ‘ LIE.’ You see ‘beliefs are only true if you believe them.’

So what does all this have to do with M.E. recovery?

Cordelia Fine’s book ‘A Mind Of Its Own’  highlights ‘the irrational loyalty’ we show towards our beliefs.

She says:

‘Once acquired, even the most erroneous beliefs enjoy an undeserved degree of protection from rejection and revision.’

- Cordelia Fine

We CAN change our beliefs.

Our labels become our perception of who we are and can form the foundation of our identity. So when someone tells us we are shy, lazy, bossy, we internalise those beliefs and begin to behave in line with what others expect of us.

The actions we take are chosen in line with those labels.

If we are the clever one, that means we must do well. We must get high grades. It is what is expected of us, so the ‘opinion’ of another person forms our beliefs and drives our actions.

Coaches know that when people talk about wanting to change their situation in any way, whether it be improving health, finances or any relationship issues, that they are struggling to do it, there is something causing an interference.

This can manifest as self-sabotage: when we go some way to achieving something then snap back into our comfort zone and make excuses [or give all the reasons why we can’t do it].

Even worse, we talk ourselves out of even trying something new.

At the next Support Group meeting I couldn’t wait to show my findings to the group and celebrate the good news that we could all get well.

My excited discoveries fell on stony ground.

The group was defensive and one by one they gave reasons why each of them could not use this information. One said they could not travel to the clinic, another couple said that they would not be able to afford his fees and another said ‘You haven’t accepted your illness yet have you?'

I was not so much deflated as stunned! For a start I could not afford any fees either but I had borrowed the money from my mum as I believed it to be such an important step.

"I thought this group wanted to get better. That was why I had joined. What I began to realise is that M.E. like any situation we create and moan about, has its payoffs."

Excerpt from ‘The Authentic Self’ Finding M.E by Elaine Wilkins

Still it also inspired me to delve deep into their reactions and understand what could have evoked those responses. I now recognise what is going on when I see that resistance and am very honest with the person.

So often the beliefs that drive us to accept less than the best for ourselves are deeply embedded and unconscious and they cause interference in our healing process.

Changing Your Beliefs

So how do you get rid of the interference?

• Shine a bright light on old negative beliefs
• Reject those that don’t serve your new positive self-image
• Choose new empowering beliefs to create new behaviour
• Develop strategies to embed the new belief

The Elevator Trip to Change Your Beliefs

Imagine a journey in an elevator from the top floor level down to the basement.

Top Floor Behaviour

This is what we see people do. Any changes we attempt to make in our habits and behaviours operate at the behaviour or surface level- this is where ‘Will Power’ lives.

The trouble with will power is that it can be very short-lived. One day you can be very strong: I am going to begin a healthy eating plan and stop eating junk, but will power can weaken and abandon you when you need it most, so then you binge on junk food and feel horrible afterwards.

3rd Floor Level Behaviour

The way we feel is affected by our self-esteem. If we have high self-esteem we will often take good care of ourselves. If it is low, we doubt ourselves and can experience bad feelings that make us withdraw from opportunities, or we do too much for others to please them so that we feel better about ourselves.

We are always trying to feel better. That's why we talk about comfort eating or self-medicating as when we feel bad we try to find something to make us feel better. In the denial stage of any health breakdown we often want a quick fix.

It is often our drive to keep going that makes us take actions that are not helping us in the long term.

Painkillers or drinking caffeine both help us to feel better momentarily rather than make us look at what is causing the bad feelings.

2nd Floor Thought Level

We can beat ourselves up with our thoughts. 'Trust me to be ill'. 'I don’t want to let everyone down and miss the party'. 'I promised I would go and I was unwell last time so I must go'. 'I hate how I feel when I let people down'. 'What can I do so that I don’t let anyone down?'

1st Floor Beliefs Level

Thoughts are generated by our beliefs and these thoughts are what we need to access so that we can remove the obstacles to getting well.

Our thoughts are literally an arrangement of words. Take these 2 sentences:

'I always have bad luck' and 'I always have good luck.'

Or:

'People can’t recover from M.E. and fibromyalgia' and 'People can recover from M.E. and fibromyalgia.'

Change just 1 word and look how different our view of the world can be.

You think 60,000 thoughts per day! No wonder when our systems break down our brain gets fogged and we can’t concentrate. Most of those are the same thought over and over again. It is easy to see then why our thoughts create a habitual response to situations.

Every time we repeat a thought, we create very deep ravines in the neural pathways in our brains.

Have you ever seen a field with tall grass growing in it? What happens when people started to regularly use the field as a shortcut? Over time a pathway forms a deep ridge in the field.

That is exactly what happens in our brains. This is why we say your thoughts create the map in your head that becomes your reality.

Basement Level Values

It is our Values that drive our beliefs.

Remember in Session 13 we said that if we have been brought up to think that ‘hard work’ is important in a family it will create what you believe about how many hours you should work.

If we are brought up to value ‘authority’ we may believe that Doctors and medical experts know best and expect them to have the answers to all our health problems.

This means that we see the world through a filter. We let in evidence that fits in with our values and beliefs and we delete or distort other information that does not fit our beliefs.

For example:

The people who choose to believe they can’t get well have no reason to take responsibility and action to change their health. When they see a programme like The Chrysalis Effect that is based on recovery, they reject and attack it because it does not fit in with their belief system.

When she was asked these questions this is what transpired:

What are you trying to change?

Behaviour = smoking

What happens before you smoke?

Feeling = I feel stressed and feel a knot in my stomach

What are your thoughts?

Thought = I need a cigarette

What does smoking give you?

Belief = cigarettes relieve stress

When Jackie is stressed at work or home, she never speaks out in case this causes conflict which is what she wants to avoid at all costs [avoidance of pain]. It became clear that smoking was her method of avoiding facing up to the real issues.

With every behaviour there is a payoff - yes even being ill has some kind of benefit. It can become a way of avoiding us dealing with something that needs to change.

In Jackie’s case she hated conflict so instead of dealing with what was causing her stress - which was a colleague at work being argumentative - she reached for a cigarette to calm her down.

Keeping the peace is the payoff or 'short term gain.' 'The long term pain' of course is that not dealing with the colleague and smoking to cover her feelings is damaging her health, underneath the smokescreen belief that ‘Cigarettes relieve stress.’

Jackie believes that if she were to speak out her truth, people wouldn’t like her. There is a risk connected to being authentic and honest - we risk others not liking what we say or do.

At the very core it is linked to not feeling good enough or worthy enough and we have to work on loving and accepting ourselves for these patterns to change.

When we realise that we don’t have to please everyone, be the best at things or live up to what others think we should be, it’s such a relief.

People stay stuck to avoid the fallout in their life. We believe the greater risk is to suppress who you truly are and what you truly want.

Examining what you believe will be one of the most important breakthroughs for your health and wellbeing because you are getting in touch with what is important to you.

"Our beliefs create our thoughts. Thoughts are just a collection of words. Change the words. Change your life."

- Elaine Wilkins

Top Tips

Body

Choose an area of your body to give some TLC to this week. It could be your hair, skin or your hands and feet. What could you do to nourish and nurture that part of you?

Treat hair with conditioner and leave it on for 10 minutes A foot soak using a favourite essential oil.

Check your nails - spend a little time making them look trimmed, neat and buffed or use some nail polish if you prefer.

Spirit

It's all about flower power!

Having a beautiful plant or flowers in the room you spend time in really lifts our spirits and keeps us in touch with nature. Tending a plant and really noticing each new shoot as it appears gives us a lift and grounds us.

If someone can give you a cutting that you can nurture, that is even better. It teaches us about the speed nature operates at. It helps us appreciate that healing, like plant growth, takes time.

External World

If you have someone who is caring for you and giving you lots of their time, encourage them to take some time off and go and do something fun or relaxing. You and they will both feel so good about this.

Can’t wait to hear about your amazing breakthroughs this week!